As the Internet becomes a more important part of teaching and more accessible to students, teachers need to be more aware of the importance of teaching students to be critical of the web.  Students need to realize that just as not everything seen on television or read in newspapers is true, not everything found on the Internet is true.  As students are introduced to the Internet, they should be made aware of website evaluation.

Use these basic evaluation guidelines (or others from the resources below) when surfing the Internet.

  CARS Checklist (from Evaluating Internet Research Sources by Robert Harris
(CARS = Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness, Support)

Credibility	Is an author listed?  What are the author's credentials?  Can the author be reached for questions or comments? Is there evidence of positive peer evaluation? Has the author taken care to check for misspelling, poor grammar, etc.?
Accuracy	Is the date of the site current? Is the information complete and not too vague? Does the author acknowledge all views?
Reasonableness	Is the author fair and objective? Is the author concerned with the truth?
Support	Does the author provide support for the information? Are the sources listed? Are there other resources with similar information?
The following may also be considered when evaluating websites.
Design & Technology	Are the pictures relevant and clear? Are the pages easy to maneuver? Have the colors been chosen well? Do the links work? Does the page load relatively quickly?

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• Discuss what makes a good website or a poor website.
• Model web evaluation with the class on several sites.  Use a  LCD panel or TV connection so everyone can see.
• Discuss fact vs. opinion & fact vs. fiction as done in reading class & when discussing other media.
• Students can be taught to check the date of a site - just as they should be careful about the age of the encyclopedia that they use.
• Students can be taught to look at the author of the site.   Although younger students may not be as critical as older students. (i.e. Dr. John Doe - is he really a doctor? - what kind?) Older students could look into the “doctor's” bio more carefully.
• Students can be taught to look at the site's links and to judge their relevancy to the original site.
• Try this idea!  Compare information found on the web to information found in print.
• Discuss the extension on the domain.  (.com, .edu)  Use the chart provided in Evaluating Information Found on the World Wide Web (see links below) for discussion & possibly post near the computers for later reference.
• See the section Rubrics for Evaluating Websites and encourage students to use them.

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